


13 Things Your Retired Army Doctor turned Blogger Won’t Tell You, Sherlock Holmes

by Jellybean728



Series: 13 Things [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, unrequited love sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 23:16:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1112679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jellybean728/pseuds/Jellybean728
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part four of a series of ficlets inspired by the recent Reader's Digest articles. This one is the personal list of the things John won't tell Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	13 Things Your Retired Army Doctor turned Blogger Won’t Tell You, Sherlock Holmes

1\. Thank you, Sherlock.  For waking me up, for giving me purpose, for pushing me to think fast and run faster.  Thank you for curing my limp, for stealing my sleep, for filling the air with symphonies and cacophonies.  For take-away and stakeouts, for laughing at crime scenes and shouting at siblings.  For saving me.  Thank you.

2\. You really are an annoying dick most of the time.  The thing that’s most annoying about you is that your smugness and your arrogance are well deserved, because you are the most brilliant, amazing, extraordinary man I’ve ever met.  I can’t even maintain being properly annoyed with you, you absolute wanker.

3\. I know you think it’s my “caretaker tendencies” that make me nag you about things like eating and sleeping.  But that’s bollocks.  I ought to be on Mike Stamford about his blood pressure, and Mrs. Hudson about her herbal soothers for that dodgy hip, and your brother, if it comes to that, about dieting when there’s no need, but I’m not.  It’s just you, Sherlock.  I want you to take better care of yourself, because you’re important.  And I’d like to be the one who takes care of you, but you won’t let me.

4\. It isn’t that I don’t understand where you’re coming from about Harry.  And it isn’t that I don’t agree. It’s about the drinking, but it’s not.  Not really.   It’s that no matter what else, I remember Harry from before, and it breaks my heart that the happy, smiling girl I grew up with is gone. It’s like she died, but I didn’t get to mourn her, because she’s still here.  I know that doesn’t make any sense, but that’s what it feels like.  I do wonder, sometimes, what happened between you and Mycroft.  It just seems to me that if the two of you really didn’t like each other as much as you pretend, you’d just stop speaking.  But you don’t, and that tells me that somewhere inside all the insults and shouting, there’s love.  I wouldn’t presume to try to tell you how to mend your relationship with him; I’m hardly the person to give advice about sibling harmony.   

5.  I don’t know where you get off trying to give me dating advice, given that at least two of the last five women I’ve dated were run off by none other than yourself!

6\. Did you know you sing in the shower?  More importantly, did you know that you sing current pop music?  The type of songs you whinge about whenever you hear them playing at someone’s flat or in a cab.  Not just little snatches of the lyrics, either.  Whole songs.  It makes me wonder if you’re aware you’re doing it?  Are you secretly listening to One Direction?  There’s a part of me that would really love to find out you are.  Or is your brain really just absorbing it all without you really noticing?  It wouldn’t surprise me, and your ego certainly doesn’t need any boosting.  I’m not sure which I possibility I would love more.

7.  It wasn’t that I was jealous of Irene or Moriarty.  Well, yes, but not the way that makes it sound.  I was jealous, because I thought I knew you, you see.  And then these two turned up, and I thought I knew how you’d react, but you…it just wasn’t what I was expecting.  They both fascinated you; it was unnerving.  The thing is Sherlock, I was jealous of how much interest you showed in them, and I was scared.  Scared that you’d realize I’m just an ordinary person, nothing special about me at all. Irene was clever, and quick, and she did what she liked and didn’t care what people thought and you two were stunning together and I hated that you two clicked together so effortlessly.  It made me think; maybe our friendship wasn’t as special as I’d thought.  And Moriarty, well, it was clear you didn’t feel anything like you did with Irene, but he still captivated you in a way that I never could.  You had a, the only word I can come up with is kinship, with him.  You were two sides of the same coin, the two of you.  And I’m just nothing like that, like the three of you.  I can’t compete.  It’s just, before they came along it never occurred to me I might some day have to.

8\. I know why you took that fall.  And given enough time, I can even appreciate it that you did it for me.  For all of us.  And given the opportunity to sacrifice myself for you, I would take it, Sherlock.  Every time.  But the way you did it.  I won’t forgive that kind of lie a second time, Sherlock. 

9\. I wonder sometimes if you oughtn’t take a trip to see your tailor.  From the way your buttons are all but bursting off your shirts, I wonder if he’s using measurements from when you were a teenager, and you just haven’t been arsed to have a new fitting done in years.  And don’t even get me started on the cut of your trousers.

10\. You’re very quiet when you’re having a nightmare.  Not like me.   Or, not like I’ve been told I am.  I know I shout, and sometimes scream, and I always, always wake up in tears.  Thanks, by the way, for not making a fuss.  They’re not as bad, well. I was going to say they’re not as bad, but of course they’re terrible.  I meant, they don’t come as often, now.  But you, you’re very quiet.  It’s like, even in your sleep, you’re still in control.  It’s hard to watch.  I imagine it must be hard to listen to me shouting and crying.  It’s just as bad watching you fight off being scared.  It’s like, even when you’re at home, you don’t feel like it’s safe to let go.  It reminds me of that night in Baskerville, you remember?  I don’t like it, Sherlock.  I don’t like that you have nightmares, and I really can’t imagine the sorts of horrors a mind like yours could throw at a person.  But I like even less that even in your sleep you don’t feel safe enough to just feel what you’re feeling.  I just don’t like it.

11.  I rarely have nightmares about the war anymore.  Every so often, if I’ve seen something on the telly about it, I dream of Afghanistan.  And I still have nightmares about your fall, yes.  When that one comes to me, I’m just watching you endlessly falling.  Sometimes you’re falling over and over.  Other times you’re falling slowly, so slowly that I almost think I could catch you, somehow, break your fall, but it’s like I’m running in a pool full of syrup, and no matter how hard I try I never, never get there in time.  But the worst ones, Sherlock, are the ones about what life was like after your fall.  They’re the dreams where you don’t come back.  And I live out the rest of my days missing you.

12.  Sometimes I wonder about that first night, at Angelo’s, when I asked if you had a boyfriend and you thought I was trying to chat you up.  Does that happen to you often?  It must.  And sometimes, I wonder if the look you gave me afterwards, when I said no, was really about being annoyed?  Or was it maybe about being disappointed?  I’ve stopped wondering about why I wonder about it.  It’s because it’s you.

13.  Bloody hell, Sherlock, I’m in love with you.  


End file.
